How to make pulled pork on a Big Green Egg

How to make pulled pork on a Big Green Egg

As school lets out all over the United States this summer, many of us will be throwing and attending graduation parties. When entertaining large groups many of us have order piles of pizzas or party subs from our local restaurants. I have turned to my Big Green Egg for help in feeding large groups this summer. This was for a co-workers graduation party.

This is 72 pounds of bone-in pork shoulder on a XL Big Green Egg.

(8) 8-10 pound bone-in pork shoulders

Apple Juice

Down and Dizzy Big Green Egg Rub

Lump Charcoal

The prep: The day before I injected apple juice into each pork shoulder. I then used a heavy coating of Down and Dizzy BBQ Rub all over the pork shoulders after I trimmed some of the heavy fat areas. I placed all this meat in the refrigerator over night.

On my XL Big Green Egg, I placed enough lump charcoal into my grill to go about half way up the second fire ring inside. Get the grill stabilized at 250 degrees with the Plate Setter inside the Egg with the legs up. This allows you to place a foil cooking pan inside on the Plate Setter (underneath the cooking grate). I placed about 6 cups of apple juice inside this foil pan.

Once the XL Egg was holding 250 degrees for 30 minutes, I removed the Plate Setter and placed 6 chunks of Peach Fruit-wood on the hot coals to get a nice smoke flavor to my meat.

10 minutes later I added 4 pork shoulders on the main cooking grate, and another 4 shoulders onto the 2-tier rack I own as shown above. (Yes, it fits)

Using a wireless meat thermometer I was able to monitor my cooking temperatures and shoulder temperatures from the comforts of my living room over the next 9-10 hours. I only needed to adjust my dampers on my Big Green Egg 3 times during this span. I had to allow more airflow when the temperatures started to drop to 240 degrees.

At the 9 hour mark some of my smaller pork shoulders started to reach 170 degrees. At this point I removed them, wrapping them in foil and placing a 1/2 cup of apple juice inside the foil wrapped meat. I returned each wrapped shoulder to the grill.

With the Egg holding at 250 degrees, it took an additional 3-4 hours for the internal temperatures of the shoulders to reach 200 degrees and this is when I removed them all. After removing all 8 pork shoulders from the grill, I placed them into a cooler for the next 2 hours. This allowed them to cool, and for me to travel to my co-workers home. Upon arriving to her home we opened each of the shoulders, and the bone pulled right out.